"Today, we'll have a whole new world to ravage!"
On Halloween, Dib's experiments with exploring other dimensions leads to him being transported to a horrible nightmare world. Desperate, he turns to Zim for help, leaving them both trapped in the other world and having to work together to escape.Tropes of Spooky Doom
- 13 Is Unlucky: Dib’s room in the asylum is on the 13th floor.
- Another Dimension: The nightmare realm in Dib's head.
- Balloon Belly: Gir gets a grotesque one after gorging himself on Halloween candy.
- Bedlam House: Dib gets sent to the “Crazy House for Boys” for acting crazy in class.
- Body Horror: Not only do the Halloweenies create a hole in Dib’s forehead which Zim widens to climb through to get back to the real world, Dib also uses it to escape which involves turning his body completely inside out.
- Caged Inside a Monster: When Dib puts the flashing collar on Zim to trick the monsters into thinking he’s the chosen one, Zim gets sucked up by one of them and trapped in its cage-like stomach.
- Covered in Gunge: Zim uses one of the Membranes’ inventions to spray the monsters with green slime, which they’re all disgusted by.
- Crapsack World: Apparently in the IZ universe, schools regularly provide classes with "crazy cards" that let them ship students off to asylums without any sort of legal proceeding. This is what ends up happening to Dib.
- Description Cut: Zim mentions that he hopes Gir is doing okay against the “zombies.” Cut to Gir terrorizing the trick-or-treaters and gobbling up their candy.
- Doomy Dooms of Doom: Used in the episode’s title.
- Dumbass Has a Point: The others are quick to write off Dib as going insane due to the nightmare realm, but given that Dib's acting like a maniac and constantly twitching, you might be willing to forgive their reactions.
- Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: Zim’s classmate showing off her “faiwy pwincess” costume at the beginning of the episode speaks like this.
- Enemy Mine: Dib and Zim have to team up to escape the nightmare realm, though they're both quick to turn on each other the first chance they get.
- Evil Is Petty: Once he has access to a portal back to the main universe, Zim doesn't hesitate to leave Dib behind.
- Exact Words: When Zim prepares to attack Dib for dragging him into the nightmare realm, Dib warns him that the only way back home is through his head, so if anything happens to him Zim is stuck there forever. Zim is angered by this, before asking if he can at least do stuff to Dib's legs. Dib seems to consider this for a moment, before catching himself and saying no to that too.
- Good Is Not Nice: Dib has no problem sending the Halloweenies after Zim as a diversion to save himself.
- Halloween Episode: The episode is set entirely on Halloween, with Zim's side of the plot prior to getting sucked into Dib's story is him fearing trick-or-treaters (whom he believes are zombies after his "blood candies").
- Horrifying the Horror: Nightmare Bitters takes one look at the main universe, especially Gir sitting bloated atop all the Halloween candy he stole, and flees back to the nightmare realm.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: While he and Zim are fighting, Dib accidentally reality-flashes back into the nightmare realm and takes Zim with him. The two must then work together to make it back to the real world.
- Literal-Minded: Miss Bitters says that Halloween has turned into “a shamelessly commercial ploy to turn children into candy-starved zombies.” Zim takes this literally and thinks a zombie apocalypse is breaking out.
- Multiple-Choice Past: Miss Bitters claims she was once a fairy princess who got shocked by a bug zapper. Which doesn't really line up with her earlier claim in "Career Day" to having once built her own rocket ship which imploded on her when in space.
- Not Helping Your Case: Dib popping back and forth between realities mid-conversation doesn’t do anything to help him convince people that he’s not insane.
- The Prophecy: The monsters in Dib’s nightmare world think he’s “the boy with the flashing neck” who will save them all.
- Running Gag: This is the episode where the joke about Dib having a big head really picks up, to the point that it's speculated to be because he has a whole dimension in there.
- Shout-Out: When Zim's base is being assaulted by the trick-or-treaters, their hands burst through the boarded up windows in a reference to Night of the Living Dead.
- Sugar Causes Hyperactivity: Gir once he gets a taste of Halloween candy.
- Take Over the World: The Halloweenies intend to invade Dib's home dimension.
- Talkative Loon: The nightmarish visions Dib is experiencing cause him to experience a Sanity Slippage, mumbling nonsense to himself in such a way that it makes his classmates note that he’s acting even crazier than normal.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Despite the torment and actual hell he goes through, Dib gets away unscathed at the end of the episode, with a lollipop for his troubles.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: The Halloweenies are terrified by the sight of dozens of trick-or-treaters and immediately beat a swift retreat back to their home dimension.
- You Have Failed Me: Nightmare Bitters punishes her minions who fail to capture Dib by sending them into a fiery room.Bitters: You failed me. You will be condemned to the realm of eternal screaming and...uh...restlessness!
- You Have to Believe Me!: Everyone writes Dib off as "crazier than usual" when he starts ranting about being sucked in and out of another dimension.
